In 2014, I was a prompter for a local homeschool poetry festival. With copies of all the poems to be recited, from pre-K kids to highschoolers, I sat in the front row, ready to provide a word or a line from the poem if someone on stage lost their train of thought.
That evening, I witnessed a remarkable feat of memory when a student named Carolyn recited T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” without missing a beat or a word, including the opening lines in Italian from Dante’s “Inferno.” Those who know Eliot’s poem will applaud such an accomplishment as I did.
Memorization as a tool for learning has in recent decades lost favor among many educators, who argue that it’s old-fashioned and the antithesis of critical learning. From multiplication tables to historical dates to poetry, memorization has received a bad rap, and has been swept aside as we rely increasingly on our computers.
Not all agree that memorization is an exercise in what its opponents call “drill and kill.” Writing in City Journal, lawyer and author Michael Beran points out that great minds like Augustine’s and Shakespeare’s were nurtured by the memorization of vast lines of poetry and literature, and that even in the first half of the 20th century American educators regarded learning poetry and prose passages by heart as essential to a liberal education.
Right now, however, advocates of recitations and rote learning are losing this educational battle. “For progressive educators, to require students to recite ‘Daffodils’ or memorize the Gettysburg Address is a relic of a ‘drill and kill’ culture that inhibits the development of the self and is the education equivalent of a chain gang,” Beran writes.
Enter Ian Jeffries.
A student of mine from over 20 years ago, Jeffries is a computer programmer living in Pennsylvania. A few months ago, he contacted me out of the blue and explained that he was developing a memorization site.
Looking through it, I found that he combined technology, some memorization tools, and practical topics to make a sort of memory gymnasium conducive to learning and mental exercise. Right now, the site offers six decks of flash cards: Art, Architecture, National Parks, Trees, Historical Events, and Constellations. His straight-up instructions explain how the images positively assist memorization, the way the card method works, and how users will soon be much more capable of making creative connections by using what they’ve memorized.
Intrigued both by his interest in memorization and by his flashcards, Jeffries and I talked at length one recent afternoon. I asked him why he believed in learning certain things by heart.
“I think memorization is important for creative tasks,” he replied. “Creativity is all about long distance connections across things that might not appear immediately related, and so you have to actually have your brain filled with facts to be able to connect.”
In one way or another, memory work involves repetition. When I asked Jeffries whether he had any other tips, he said: “Better than me coming up with tips, I can point you to the best list of memorization tips that’s ever existed. This man Piotr Wozniak wrote an article titled ‘Twenty rules of formulating knowledge.’ These include using images. They’re really good.”
I later read through that article, finding that Jeffries is on target in this recommendation. Three of the rules, which are accompanied by explanations, that Wozniak deems most important are “Do not learn if you do not understand,” “Learn before you memorize,” and “Build upon the basics.” By these recommendations, Wozniak demolishes the disdain some educators feel for memorization by demonstrating that critical thinking and memorization can walk hand in hand.
Jeffries pays homage to Wozniak’s ideas by discussing the concept of spaced repetition, which involves learning material, reviewing it, and then reviewing it again just as the knowledge is fading.
The national parks cards were the first Jeffries created. “I went to Miami, and I had no idea that there was national park right there, Biscayne National Park. I said to myself right then, ‘I’m never going to another city again and not realize there’s a national park next door.’”
The parks idea got him started, with all the national parks marked with an iconic photo, now awaiting visitors. But it was his idea for an interactive constellation map that turned the corner on his approach to the idea of a memorization site. “I was thinking to myself this is going to be a lot of work, and if someone is going to do this work, they should share it with other people. And so that’s when I became serious about making the site.”
Jeffries is one more member of a growing movement which recognizes the association of creativity, connection, and context with memorization. A prime example is Winston Churchill, who in his youth ingested reams of poetry whose words and cadences later made their way into the World War II speeches that kept his island nation free from tyranny.
Finally, and not to be overlooked, memorization brings quiet pleasure. The woman who can identify peonies and forget-me-nots; the man who, having once learned the American presidents and their years in office, has a framework for past events; anyone who leans in on Kipling’s “If” when disaster strikes: these and countless other people may find and take a quiet bliss in the items they’ve stored in the pantry of memory.
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This article was made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal, a project of 1819 News.
Image credit: Pxhere
